English French Translations Guide: Meet Perrine, Translator English FrenchPerrine, Translator English French, offers advice on English French translations in this first part of our conversation with her. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find more French language translation resources, including a price comparison guide to professional translation services. (Click here for a free language translator.) Conversation with Perrine Souffez, Spanish and English to French Translator and Project Manager - Part 1Q: Why did you decide to become a translator? A: Because I love to write. I wrote a lot in French, and I love Spanish, and I was coming to Spain, so I thought this would be my ideal job because I'm writing all day long. Okay, doing technical translations isn't the same as writing literature. But I love looking for the right words, shaping the sentences so that they sound right. I love that. Q: Are there specific difficulties in translating from English to French? A: I'd say it's more difficult than from Spanish to French. Translating from Spanish to French, the sentence structure is the same, you don't have to change the word order, and so on. But in English, the sentences are shorter, and you have to reorganize the structure of the text. "I love looking for the right words, shaping the sentences so that they sound right. I love that." - Perrine Souffez, Professional Translator English French Q: What training or background do you have in translation? A: I studied Spanish Philology in France, and then I came to Spain and got a Master's Degree in Translation. I wanted to find work as an in-house translator, and I ended up working as a translator for Ciao.com, and now I am a translator for an engineering firm. And that's where I developed a specialization in technical translation. Before that, I was doing translations for marketing, advertising, and so on. Q: What special challenges are there in the different types of English French translations you have done? A: Comparing my experience doing marketing translations and doing technical translations, the technical material causes difficulties in the beginning when you don't understand it very well, but, later, translating a text is much easier. With technical translations, the client's objective is basically to understand what kind of valve you put in what kind of pipe, and that's it. With marketing, the goal is different: you have to choose your words more carefully, find a way to write the sentence for maximum impact -- which doesn't matter in a technical translation. "With technical translations, the client's objective is basically to understand what kind of valve you put in what kind of pipe, and that's it. With marketing, the goal is different." - Perrine Souffez, Professional Translator English French Q: Do you think it's important for translation buyers to look for a translator who is a specialist in the subject matter? A: Yes, because that translator will actually know the terminology that has to be used. No matter how much someone might look things up in dictionaries or on the Internet -- like what I was doing in the beginning -- it's very different from when a translator really knows what he's talking about. That person will be able to write the information much better. He'll know how to write it in the new language much more effectively so that it can be understood. English French Translations - Related ResourcesGo to Part 2 of our interview with Perrine, Translator English French Go to Part 3 of our interview with Perrine, Translator English French See typical prices for English French translations Go back to the main English French translations category page
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